The Wastes

Today is a funny kind of day. A sad kind of day really, but more because it’s less funny in a “Ha Ha” sense and more funny in an off putting way with a kind of underlying anger at myself. It has to do with why this particular diary has so many missing entries. You see, I had thought that while I was without means I should also abstain from working on any of these things. It was a way to focus myself and to provide a kind of built in motivation. I had thought that it was a good idea, and although slow it was paying off.Until yesterday that is. Yesterday the giant pause button, the Iron Lung metaphor that I’ve been using, became a liability. I was told that I lack “follow- through” because I was able to put all of this on hold. Further, that became one of the deciding factors. Liability.Afterward, as I sat thinking about this new paradigm, this new way of considering everything, I was struck by how much time I had wasted. Almost a year now, a bloody year has come and almost gone, and all I had to show for it was a couple of updates and a lot of articles read. I thought for just a moment, what if? What if I had continued instead of setting myself on a kind of intellectual and creative exile? Where would I be now? How would things be better? How many projects like Paper Zeppelin would I have finished? How much more advanced would my coding have become?But the real question quickly became, why am I doing this to myself? If nothing else, every day I could have had something new to show for the day I spent.So I’m throwing it off. When the very act that I thought would help was beginning to actively hinder me, then there is no reason to continue to use it.To that end, let’s consider the good bits that we can find. Yes, it did motivate me because I rightly would do nothing but code all day and make my games given an option. It did provide a carrot, but too far removed to provide a real fire. So here’s the plan as I continue. Every day in the morning, I do what I need to do. No procrastinating and none of the other things that I could be doing. Then in the afternoon, provided that I did what I had set out to do that day, I’ll get back to work.A new paradigm. A new plan. A new start.